The Characters

Al

"Weird Al" plays the main character of the show, Al, who,as the show's theme song says, lives in acave 20 miles below the surface of the Earth. He is visited every weekby various friends, ranging from regular friends, such as the HoodedAvenger and Bobby the Inquisitive Boy, to guests, such as Drew Careyand Hanson.

Fred Huggins

Another character "Weird Al" plays is FredHuggins, a competing talk show host. Fred is joined by two puppetsidekicks, Baby Boolie andPapa Boolie. (They both rather dislike FredHuggins.)

News Anchor Al

This is a character that appears wheneverAl flips through the channels on his television.

News Anchor Al is a satirical portrayal of the television newsmedia today. This news anchor is rather inept, treating everythingas news, even the most trivial thing. (Such as when he teased anupcoming story: "What's in my pocket? Find out at 11.")

The Actor

Alfred Matthew Yankovic was born onOctober 23, 1959 in Lynwood, California to Nick and MaryYankovic. For his seventh birthday his parents gave him anaccordian (it was Al's first), not realizing what impacttheir gift would have on the world.

In 1976, Al graduated from LynwoodHigh School. He was the valedictorian of his class. Whileattending high school, Al first heard the Dr. Demento Show.He instantly liked it, and even started sending in a fewtapes of songs he recorded in his bedroom. The first sentwas "Belvedere Cruising", a song about the Yankovicfamily car. This was followed up a few weeks later with"School Cafeteria", a song about just what thetitle says. It made it into Dr. Demento's Top Ten.

From high school, Al moved on toCalifornia Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo,planning on a career in architecture. He worked on thecampus radio station and became known as "Weird Al"for the first time. During his junior year, Al was recordedand placed on a record for the first time. It was a compilationalbum from local artists, and Al performed a song about SanLuis Obispo.

The next summer, "My Sharona" bythe Knacks became a huge hit, and it inspired Al to write hisparody called "My Bologna". He sent it to theDr. Demento Show, and itbecame one of the most popular songs of that year. It alsolanded Al with a six-month contract with Capitol Records,and he first seriously started considering music as a career.However, Al discovered that Capitol did not intend to do thepromotion required to make him a big star, so he decided tofinish college. Al graduated from Cal Poly near the end of1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree in architecture.

Also towards the end of 1980, Alperformed "Another OneRides the Bus" live on the Dr. Demento Show. Therehe met Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz for the first time. Altried unsuccessfully to parlay the popularity of "AnotherOne Rides the Bus" into a major record deal. Eventuallyhe gave up and found work in Westwood One's mail room.

Dr. Demento invited Al to perform ata night club in Phoenix, Arizona, and Al went along. Afterhe performed, he met Jay Levey, a Los Angeles artists'manager, and Jay offered to help Al. Jay has been guidingAl's career ever since.

The first step was to get a band together."Bermuda" was an obvious choice for drummer, but Alhad to listen to tryouts for the rest of the positions. EventuallySteve Jay was decided upon to play bass guitar, and his friendJim West became the lead guitar player. Next an album was recorded,with the help of studio engineer Rick Derringer. The final stepwas to find a record company to sign Al. Eventually ScottiBrothers signed Al and his first album,"Weird Al"Yankovic was released in April 1983.

The next year, In 3-D wasreleased. It featured the Michael Jackson parody "EatIt". The song propelled Al into mainstream popculture and also garnered a few awards.The recording received a Grammy for Best ComedyRecording; the video received the American Video Award forBest Male Performance. The entire album was named in PeopleMagazine's top ten albums of the year.

Al's next album came out in June 1985amd was called Dare to BeStupid. Riding on the strength of the parody ofMadonna's "Like a Virgin" with "Likea Surgeon", the album peaked at number 50 onBillboard's Top 100 albums. The album went gold,as did In 3-D. Other accomplishments for Al in 1985included the release of the mockumentary The Compleat Aland the pseudo-biography The Authorized Al.

In October of 1986, Al's fourth albumPolka Party!was released. Unfortunately, after the success of his previoustwo albums, this one was quite a disappointment. It peaked onthe Billboard chart at number 177. It did receive a Grammynomination for Best Comedy Record of the Year, though.

The downswing didn't last long. With therelease of Even Worse, Al's success was instantlyback. The album became Al's best-selling one yet andeventually went platinum.The impetus for most of the success of this album is attributedto Al's second Michael Jackson parody "Fat". Thevideo received a Grammy for Best Concept Video and theentire album received a nomination for Best Comedy Recording.

In the fall of 1988, Al released a children'sCD entitled Peter and the Wolf. It received a Grammy nominationfor Best Children's Recording.

The next year was a big one for Al. His veryown feature film UHF was released. It got lost in the glutof summer movies (like the first Batman), but it has donevery well on cable and in the home video market. Al plays clips fromthe movie at his concerts, and that has elicited enormous responsefrom the audience. Starring in the movie with Al were Kevin McCarthy,Michael Richards (before Seinfeld), Victoria Jackson, DavidBowe, and Fran Drescher (before The Nanny). At the same timeas the movie was released, Al came out with UHF - Original MotionPicture Soundtrack (And Other Stuff). It included music fromthe movie and also a few songs that weren't in the movie, such asone of my personal favorites"The Biggest Ball ofTwine in Minnesota". Also featured on the album were parodiesof Dire Strait, Tone Loc, R.E.M., and Fine Young Cannibals.

Al took a hiatus in preparation for his nextalbum. He finished all of the originals he wanted to use, but didn'tfeel he had a strong enough parody to headline the album. Thatunsurety ended once Nirvana came out with "Smells Like TeenSpirit". Al received permission to parody from Kurt Cobain,and in 1992, Off the Deep End was released. The main song was"Smells LikeNirvava", which made fun of how it was so difficult tounderstand Nirvana's lyrics. Off the Deep End became Al's fourthgold album, followed immediately by his fifth, Alapalooza.

Alapalooza was, again,another successfor Al. The main song this time was a parody of an old rock tune"MacArthur Park". Since the movie Jurassic Park wasso popular at the time, that's what Al decided to sing about in"Jurassic Park", in a manner similar to his song"Yoda".Both of them were parodies of classic rock songs. Also onthe album are parodies of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Aerosmith, andBilly Ray Cyrus. One of Al's originals (and another of my personalfavorites) is "Frank's2000" TV", which was a style parody of R.E.M.

Al was silent in the way of albums again fora few years, but in 1996 he was back with a vengeance.Bad Hair Day wasreleased and is Al's best-selling ever! It reached number 14 on theBillboard Top 100 Albums (the highest ever for Al), and alsowent gold and platinum weeks after its release. Featured on the albumare some of Al's best songs yet. The Coolio parody "AmishParadise", a Presidents of the United States of Americaparody, and also some of Al's most creative originals. There's hisa cappella twisted love song "Since You've BeenGone" and his second Christmas song "The Night SantaWent Crazy."

Between albums, Al worked on creating a children's televisionshow for CBS. The show premiered inSeptember 1997, but was cancelled after only 13 episodes.

Al released Running with Scissors in 1999. The lead single was"The Saga Begins," a parody of "American Pie" aboutthe first Star Wars prequel. The album was certified as platinum in May2001.